No UK price cut for Apple TV

"Not what people wanted" but will still have to pay top whack

17 January 2008 10:29 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Despite the fact that Steve Jobs admitted during his Macworld2008 keynote speech that Apple TV has not been the success he'd hoped, Pocket-lint can reveal that we've been informed by an Apple spokesperson that there will be no UK price cut for the home cinema device.

Launching what Jobs called, "Apple TV take two", the company has upgraded the user interface as well as the capabilities of the devices to allow American users to rent movies via the Internet and download DVD and HD quality footage.

As well as the firmware refresh, Jobs announced on stage, to much fanfare, that Apple will reduce the starting price of an Apple TV box to from $299 to $229.

The new UI and features will be available as a free software update to all current Apple TV owners in 2 weeks but, as with the iTunes update, UK owners will not see movies rentals any time soon. Apple told Pocket-lint that it will "hopefully" be by the end of the year.

Jobs described the revamp to the product as "a revolution". Stating "We've made some progress since our first try... This is a new, free software upgrade. We want everyone to have this new software", it seems that this same generosity does not apply to the price cut.

Despite Jobs' claim that: "We want to make it [Apple TV] even more accessible" the UK pricing will remain the same - £199 for the 40GB version and £269 for the 160GB version.